It’s not that I’m unaware of the behavior. I’m fully aware, unfortunately. This can manifest itself in many ways, in the form of a particular type of sandal that I have to have, in an outfit for the girls in my wedding that doesn’t exist outside of my mind, or a way of life that I decided I’ll adopt and do every day (i.e. exercise, which is never a lasting obsession, every time I become obsessed with it).

I have therefore successfully figured out my stages of obsession, and as an example, I will use my most recent obsession: an H&M oversized black coat.

Stage One: Bethany figures out she wants to avoid thinking about something serious that will actually determine the next steps of her life (yes, this happens to me often because, unfortunately, some life decisions are actually masked obsessions).

Stage Two: Bethany discovers (and thinks its incredible) that her favorite store has an app, or that HauteLook exists. She immediately downloads the app and begins “figuring out how it works” aka shopping.

Stage Three: Bethany’s shopping cart is full of “maybes” she just wanted to keep track of, but won’t buy of course.

Stage Four: Bethany buys all things in the shopping cart because she cant imagine life without them and decides to go with her gut when it comes to fashion because she feels that is the only thing she really knows about herself (false).

Stage Five: She tracks the package, multiple times a day. She’s just too excited to wait for such glorious, precious cargo that she needs immediately and if possible she could wear all at once.

Stage Six: Items arrive, she tries on everything and is disappointed with the fit of two particular items that she was most obsessed with. Oh no. It’s online returns only. She immediately hops online and purchases the “guesstimate” she deems is the “correct” fit even though the measurements chart betrayed her once already.

The next day she has to try to return it at the store, or at least exchange it to see if the store carries those items. No dice (remember, I had already ordered the new jacket the day before).

To the post office she goes.

Stage Seven: While waiting for the new package, she decides to “pop into” an H&M and see what’s going on. On no. This one has the jacket. But I can’t have it now, the other one is on its way.

Stage Eight: Back to the track the package feature, which blows most of the time.

You might be wondering, “does she have anything else to do for the two weeks this has all gone down?” The answer is maybe, but my mind was clearly too consumed with the thought of (insert obsession here) to wonder about anything else. A certain life change, to be specific.

This happens to me all the time: I want to forget something, so I make some inanimate object the source of my obsession and obsess over it to completion, dragging out the process while wanting instant gratification and successfully ignoring the problem. Luckily these things don’t manifest in the form of designer bags. Most of the time it’s as simple as wanting the perfect new pair of chopsticks.

*The correct size of the jacket has since been returned because, well, the obsession was over.